Sweet Dreams
by Rayne Destiny
Summary: Inside the memory pod, Sora remains asleep, unwilling to wake up when he has all he ever wanted in his dreams...


**Disclaimer: ** Kingdom Hearts is the property of Square-Enix and Disney. I don't own it. It owns me.

**Sweet Dreams**

Naminé, Diz, and Riku all thought that the reason that Sora wouldn't wake up from his sleep inside the memory pod had to do with the fact that he needed Roxas to complete the process. What they didn't know was that his extended sleep had nothing to do with Roxas or Xion. As Sora slept in the memory pod, his true memories came back to him as dreams.

_The three of them watched the sunset from their favorite spot at the paopu tree. Sora and Kairi sat on the horizontal part of the trunk as Riku, like usual, stood beside them, his back leaning up against the tree._

"_So, Kairi's home is out there somewhere, right?" Sora asked, looking at Riku for confirmation. He seemed to know the most about their trip out of the three of them, and was also the natural leader of the three._

"_Could be," Riku answered. "We'll never know by staying here."_

"_But how far could a raft take us?"_

_Riku shrugged. "Who knows? If we have to, we'll think of something else."_

"_So, suppose you get to another world," Kairi interjected, aiming her question directly at Riku, seeming to test his knowledge. "What would you do there?"_

_Riku seemed to be caught off guard from her question, for there was a brief pause as he considered it, before answering awkwardly, "Well, I haven't really thought about it." He'd put more thought into actually getting off the island, so much in fact, that he'd hadn't thought of anything other than that. "It's just that… I've always wondered why we're here on this island. If there are any other worlds out there, why did we end up on this one? And suppose there are other worlds… then ours is just a little piece of something much greater. So we could have just as easily ended up somewhere else, right?"_

"_I don't know," Sora responded, flipping onto his back to clear the confusion that Riku's monologue had sent through his brain._

"_Exactly," Riku said. "That's why we need to get out there and find out. Just sitting here won't change a thing." There was a slight bitterness in his tone as he talked, not easily discernable for most, but it was to Kairi. "It's the same old stuff. So let's go."_

"_You've been thinking a lot lately, haven't you?" Kairi said softly, more of a statement than a question._

_Riku turned to face her. "Thanks to you. If you hadn't come here, I probably would have never thought of any of this. Kairi, thanks."_

"_You're welcome."_

However, the false ones given to him by Naminé and any others that happened in Castle Oblivion departed the same way.

"_Naminé's going to draw me!" Sora yelled at Riku over the sound of their wooden swords clashing together._

"_She drew you last time!" Riku spat back. "It's my turn!"_

_Unknown to them both, Naminé's deft fingers had sketched the two of them in the midst of their heated battle, capturing them with their swords swinging, eyes flashing, and tongues lashing at each other. She looked up from her sketchbook, glancing up at them to see if she'd added all of her finishing touches before calling to them softly with a smile. "Sora? Riku?" Somehow they heard her over all the noise they were making and turned as one to face her. "Don't worry; I drew you both," she said, turning her sketchbook around so that they both could see. "Look."_

_When the sun set and their parents came to row them home, they found Sora and Riku sitting on either side of Naminé, all looking through her sketchbook. _

There were real dreams too. He dreamed about home, he dreamed about Kairi, and he dreamed about Riku. In those dreams, sometimes it was before Destiny Islands were destroyed, sometimes the dream itself was Destiny Islands never being destroyed by the darkness. Sometimes, in the end, he'd saved Riku instead of having to shut him into the darkness inside Kingdom Hearts and the three of them were home, together. Along the way, Sora became lucid enough to know that he was dreaming, and he didn't want to wake up, knowing that his search still wasn't over. He could remain in his dreams, with Kairi's and Riku's arms around him, soft kisses on the beach, and whispered promises that they'd never be separated again.


End file.
